


The Way It Is

by goldenslumber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenslumber/pseuds/goldenslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It wasn’t supposed to happen like this."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way It Is

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. His hands weren't supposed to be slick with blood.  
  
But, even so, Brienne would not surrender. She had a shield, presumably ripped from the body of a man she had already killed. It was not as large as her own shield; the one he'd given her. She had a sword also, and whether it was his or another's Jaime did not know. Only that it was not Oathkeeper.  
  
Most of the knights of the brotherhood wore mismatched armor. This made it easier to take them in and remember them for their differences. Jaime would remember. He would come back and exact his revenge, judging by whether a man with a beard wore mail, or a balded man wore a helm spotted with rust, fingers of dark red running to the slit for his wild green eyes. The warrior who fought Brienne had a helm that shone a blinding gold, with tally designs arching along the sides and around his head like a rising sun. There was a dirtied, once yellow cloak clinging to the man's shoulders.  
  
Jaime tried to surge forward, against his binds, to grab at it and pull the man down. But the knight who held his tied wrists ripped him savagely to the ground. A boot slammed down on his ear and held him there.  
  
Brienne was the only one left on her feet. She wore heavily affected armor. She had been cut several times. Of course, the others of the brotherhood could have surrounded her and finished the joke-of-a-knight once and for all, rather easily. But she wished to die well and they wished to kill well. So the other knights did not interfere with the duel, but paused to admire.  
  
Jaime struggled to watch. Blood ran hot between his lips, tasted of salt. He could hear Brienne's labored breath, the slam of their feet in the dirt not far from him, the straggled sound the man in yellow made when her sword caught him, goring his side. Blood cascaded down the man's legs from where Jaime saw. The foe was weakening. His wench would win.  
  
 _But,_  Jaime thought furiously,  _it will not change the battle, and it will not keep her alive._  Another of the brotherhood without banners would step forward once the one in yellow fails and continue the duel. Eventually she would fall into exhaustion. And what then? Rape? From all of them? Until they finally allow the kiss of a knife to her throat and give her release?  
  
Anger welled in Jaime, and he struggled, still. Withering in the dirt did little, but earn him a swift kick to the ribs, to the throat, to the back of his head. “Quit that, Kingslayer,” ordered the man holding him. “We ain't ready to kill you yet. Lady Stoneheart wants to be see'in you first.”   
  
Brienne landed another cut across the man's chest.  _At least Brienne will die in glory,_  he thought. And then a man stepped out of the crowd and stabbed the wench in the back, denying her the chance to die as a warrior, stripping her the chance of honor. Curses poured from Jaime's mouth lividly, renewing his struggle.  
  
Even the man's brothers-at-arms were furious, especially the yellow warrior. “You had no right! She was my kill!”  
  
“My brother, you are badly hurt. I cannot let you be killed.” The backstabber yanked his dagger out of Brienne's back, let her fall heavily to the side, smack against a tree trunk and then sink inelegantly to the ground. She twisted up around herself, trying to reach the wound between her shoulder blades futility as the life's blood escaped her and spread in the dirt.  
  
Tearing strips from his own cape, the backstabber bound up his brother's gashes. A watching barb from the crowd threw up his hands in disgust. No singer could sing of the foe being stabbed in the back. His song of the Kingslayer's last friend was ruined. “It is an unsavory thing to kill a maid of lord's blood that way,” he shouted from his place. “You will call down the gods' wrath.”  
  
The backstabber shrugged. Jaime watched with choking anticipation as Brienne's attempt to staunch her own wound lost its purpose. Energy sapped from her limbs and she lay still for a few missing heartbeats. A convulsion ran through her spine and she grimaced in pain, rolled, and suddenly she was staring Jaime straight in the face.  
  
She blinked apologies, as a man's boot on her shoulder pushed her once more onto her back. He spit in her face. Another straddled her hips, laughing, and wrapped a hand around her throat, pressing his thumb sharply into her wind pipe. Tears cut treks through the dirt on her cheeks.  
  
Jaime bucked his shoulders to rid himself of the hands that ripped him to his feet, and clawed uselessly at the ropes around his wrists. “Brienne!” he shouted, burst, as they turned him away. He fought to look over his shoulder when they began to drag him away.  
  
A cold wind picked up when they pushed Jaime free of the treeline. Purple lightning spread across the sky, thunder rolling breaths later. Rain would fall soon. Wash away any evidence of the fight. If the clouds were any indication the storm was supposed to be wild, mad.  
  
Not grey, not dreary, not awful.  
  
Brienne wasn't supposed to be screaming in the distance.  
  
The knife he snatched from the boot of a man when he was pressed into the earth wasn't supposed to slip in his grasp as he cut the binds and go clattering under a bush. Jaime's strike to the man next to him killed him. He wasn't supposed to trip in his haste to get back to her. And when he grabbed her, it was supposed to be with two hands, not one, because he's hardly strong enough to lift her out from under to the other men, and then half-carry her as they throw themselves deeper into the woods, and his life means nothing; and her nails aren’t supposed to dig into his skin, or if they do it isn’t supposed to hurt.  
  
When they both collapsed beside a stream, the gods only know where, how far, and how safe, she wasn't supposed to be choking up blood. Jaime pressed the only hand he had to the wound in her back, while pulling her face into the crook of his neck, folding their fronts together, using an embrace to add all the more pressure. Her arms slung around his torso should have felt sweet, not weak.  
  
A clatter of thunder brought the downpour over their heads, and, thankfully, covered their tracks.  
  
Jaime struggled to get her into the relative safety of a alcove between two trees. Passing men were less likely to spot them there, and the rain wouldn't blind them near so much. Mud slipped and slid underneath him as he tried to keep a firm grip on Brienne. But she was slick and slippery from blood and rain, and his hand was shaking as it tried to stay planted between her shoulder blades. He almost dropped her twice; he fell both times onto his shoulder to keep it from happening.  
  
His palm was weeping blood where the slipping knife caught him, running stains of red over her face where he momentarily clutched it. “Brienne,” he said. “Brienne. Brienne. Wench. Brienne! Answer me.” She did not. He arranged her carefully onto her stomach, turned her face for breath, clumsily wiped the mud and blood from her face with his right sleeve.  
  
He sat with legs crossed, hunched, vigilant over her, hand scrabbling. Guilt clawed at his throat. “Brienne.”  _This is my fault,_  he thought, knew, would not forget. “You stupid, stubborn wench. Why couldn't you just let me die?”  
  
A guttered moan escaped her.  
  
“If you'd just handed me over they wouldn't have laid a hand on you..”  
  
“Jaime –” she rasped, then broke off.  
  
“If you don't..” And that time Jaime could not finish. Something tight, something unbearable gripped him at the thought that Brienne would not get better. That there was a possibility that his wench would die, would not get back up, he would not see her face or eyes or her fighting again. There was something sinister about the very idea.  
  
Jaime unfolded onto his side, hand still on her back, stump moving to her chin. He tipped her face up to his, blinked away rain drops. “Brienne. Look at me. Stay awake. You hear me? Look at me.”  
  
Her cheek shifted to fit snugly against his forearm, but did little else. “Wench, I swear to all the gods, if you don't open your eyes –!”  
  
“I will open my eyes if it pleases me,” she said, both breathless and stumbled. There was nothing spiteful to it, and Jaime's lips quirked as he recognized his own words being said back to him. “And I will do as I please, which means I will not 'just let you die.'” Her eyes opened then, hard and very much alive.  
  
Jaime stilled himself from doing something impulsive (like clutching her to him, or kissing her, or something equally ridiculous), and said, “I'm supposed to save you.”  _I'm supposed to be the knight._  
  
“You already did.”  
  
 _Sapphires,_  Jaime thought. Then he remembered the sight of the man straddling her. Rage balled into the pit of his stomach, threatening to choke the relief of hearing her speak. But it quickly dissipated, leaving him exhausted and sagging into the mud. Using a clumsy hand he took off his Lannister cloak and (unable to tear off a reasonable strip of fabric) Jaime secured it around her shoulders and under her arms.  
  
When he hugged her to him, their blood wasn't supposed to stain each other's faces, and the red of it was supposed to horrify them and not make them set their jaws. When his lips pressed into the side of her neck, she wasn't supposed to be too weak from blood loss to blush. When her legs intertwine with his and cling and clamp around his thighs, he shouldn't know it's because she's worried she could wake to find him gone (taken, or she herself, dead). Her fingers curling into the collar of his shirt made him think of a small girl – and he remembered how young she was then, and she wasn't supposed to be wasting that youth saving a kingslayer like him.  
  
He wasn't supposed to realize how much he loves her while laying in a mud puddle, covered in gore.  
  
But he did. And there was nothing he could do to change that.


End file.
